School of Education News

UW-Madison alumni Todd Anderson and Bruce Crownover have a collection of prints in a book titled "The Last Glacier" that is on display at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gallery 690 at The Met Fifth Avenue. Anderson, an art professor at Clemson University, received his bachelor of fine arts degree from the School of Education’s Art Department in 1997. Crownover received his master of fine arts degree from the Art Department in 1989 and today is a master printer with UW-Madison’s Tandem Press. In "The Last Glacier," Anderson and Crownover, along with Ian van Coller, worked on capturing the glaciers in Glacier National Park through prints and photography.

UW­–Madison graduate student Colin Rohm is being remembered by his campus colleagues as a scholar of uncommon talent and wide-ranging passions who nurtured the intellectual curiosity of thousands of his fellow students as a gifted advisor. Rohm, 26, was pursuing a master’s degree in educational policy studies at the School of Education and a master’s degree in public affairs at the Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs. He died Nov. 21 at UW Hospital in Madison. The cause was bacterial pneumonia and complications of Type 1 diabetes, according to his family.

Jen Schoepke was recently hired as the new director of Forward Madison, a partnership between UW-Madison’s School of Education and the Madison Metropolitan School District that’s designed to impact student achievement by growing, inducting and supporting new educators within the Madison Schools. “Forward Madison has made great strides in its first three years, and I am honored and excited to continue to advance its equity minded goals through this innovated university-district partnership,” says Schoepke, who will start her position Dec. 11.

The research of UW-Madison’s Kathryn Kirchgasler that examines the racialized history of U.S. science education was recently featured in a news report from the University of Kansas. Kirchgasler is a Ph.D. candidate with the School of Education’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction. While completing her dissertation, Kirchgasler has started working as a lecturer with the University of Kansas’ Department of Curriculum and Teaching. The news report notes how Kirchgasler has been studying how U.S. students have been separated into different levels of science classes for more than a century and how research and standardized testing have perpetuated inequalities.

A new campus forum designed to bring together UW-Madison researchers from a range of arts fields is kicking off Dec. 7. Arts Agôn: A Forum Where Arts Researchers Connect, runs from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. in the Education Building’s Wisconsin Idea Room. It will put a spotlight on how faculty and students are participating in arts research, which is a key to the creation of new knowledge, whether it takes the form of arts practice as a method of inquiry, historical research through curation, arts in science or medical research, arts educational research, or arts impact studies.

Looking to enjoy a unique experience, or hoping to find or create a one-of-a-kind gift for that special someone? Two clubs associated with the School of Education’s Art Department are hosting the annual Holiday Art Sale and Blow Your Own Glass Ornament events Dec. 9-10. The events are being hosted by Mad Gaffers, the glassblowing club, and Fresh Hot Press, the printmaking club. They run from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day at the Art Lofts, 111 N. Frances St.

Brittany Travers, a faculty member with the School of Education and Department of Kinesiology's Occupational Therapy program, is the lead author on a new study showing how playing a video game can help some children and youth with autism spectrum disorder improve their balance. In this pilot study — the largest ever to look at the effects of balance training on individuals with ASD — 29 participants between the ages of 7 and 17 with ASD completed a six-week training program playing a video game developed by the researchers.

UW-Madison alumna Eva Nimmer is playing the role of Percy Talbott in the upcoming Four Seasons Theatre production of “The Spitfire Grill.” Percy is a feisty parolee who follows her dreams to a small town in rural Wisconsin, where she finds work at the Spitfire Grill and carves out a place in the struggling community. Nimmer received her BA in 2013 from the Department of Theatre and Drama, which today is housed in the School of Education. “The Spitfire Grill” is coming to the Overture Center’s Playhouse Dec. 1-10.

A community drawing jam with Lynda Barry and her Drawbridge students will be held Nov. 30 at the Eagle Heights Community Center gym. Drawbridge is an experimental, arts-based research methods course that facilitates multi-generational research teams in examining questions and problem solving through spontaneous drawing, collage and writing. Barry is an award-winning author and cartoonist with the School of Education's Art Department. The associate professor of interdisciplinary creativity holds the Chazen Family Distinguished Chair in Art.

Jacqueline A. DeWalt, a long-time community and education advocate and former director of the UW-Madison Pre-college Enrichment Opportunity Program for Learning Excellence (PEOPLE), passed away on Monday, Nov. 20. In 2015, DeWalt was promoted to a new and expanded role as Director of External Relations, Partnerships and Development for the Division of Diversity, Equity and Educational Achievement. DeWalt joined the School of Education’s Board of Visitors in 2016 and she retired with emeritus status in 2017.